Flanagan Cup race is wide open
It has been quite some time since the seldom-wrong bookmakers have struggled to list out-and-out favourites for the business end of the two Westmeath senior championships, with the two semi-finalists in the only penultimate round of the Westmeath Examiner Cup (Castletown-Geoghegan and Clonkill) literally inseparable for the turf accountants prior to last Sunday’s thrilling match.
The men in the famous black and amber stripes edged that contest and will now be fancied – just – to edge out a Raharney side which is nigh on unrecognisable from last year’s off-colour outfit in the final next Sunday week.
The small ball format wasn’t universally popular – heaven help those charged with the thankless job of fixture-making in the Lake County and elsewhere – but assuming Pat O’Brien’s troops came through the game two days ago in TEG Cusack Park free of injuries, that extra game should stand them in good stead ahead of a clash with their age-old Deelside rivals.
Next Sunday’s schedule at Westmeath GAA headquarters has a more traditional feel to it with a Flanagan Cup semi-final double-header, albeit our greatest enemy of modern times, Mr Covid, is still dictating much of our leisure time activities, and there remains a necessity for patrons to leave the grounds and return if they are hoping to witness both eagerly-awaited semi-finals. This is a sports column, but let’s hope and pray that Gaels and non-Gaels, young and old, will continue to follow the guidelines of the medical experts (a seemingly ever-growing category) to ensure no further disruption to live sport for the rest of 2021 and thereafter.
First up next Sunday at the somewhat unusual time of 12 pm (to take into account the clock change earlier in the day) are Garrycastle and The Downs. Steven Cleary’s troops, with some sideline advice from John O’Mahony (one of the wisest heads in inter-county management for over three decades) have made significant strides in the senior ranks in recent years following on from umpteen underage triumphs, and many is the flutter that went on them before a ball was kicked in this year’s championship.
Indeed, I think it is fair to say that prior to the quarter-final clash between Garrycastle and Mullingar Shamrocks nine days ago that the men in black and amber were firm favourites to go one better than last year and qualify for the blue riband event in Westmeath football. However, many of The Downs’ spies in TEG Cusack Park left the venue very conscious of the fact that, even with the incomparable Dessie Dolan having hung up his boots, the green and red-clad outfit, managed by the latter’s brother Gary and ably aided by the county’s only double-All Star John Keane, are very much live contenders to win what would be a truly remarkable ninth Flanagan Cup this century.
Even more remarkable is that Doron Harte still remains from the ground-breaking side of 2001. There certainly appeared to be no diminution in hunger in the Garrycastle ranks when they over-powered what was admittedly a very weak challenge from Shamrocks in the quarter-final. There may be no player of Dessie Dolan’s quality in their attack any more, but there is no shortage of quality either with Alex Gardiner and the ‘Monorail’ (the affectionate name for the three Monaghan brothers) among those with match-winning potential.
The Downs will be, as ever, quite reliant on Luke Loughlin to provide the inspiration, but the maturing of colleagues such as Kevin O’Sullivan (whose illness on the day was a major disruption when Damien Gavin’s U20s lost to All-Ireland champions-in-waiting Offaly) takes some pressure off the mercurial Loughlin. Garrycastle also lost three county finals during the past two decades, and the 2005 reversal at the hands of The Downs (the last of their nine county titles) was very sore at the time.
At 3pm, defending champions St Loman’s, Mullingar take on Coralstown/Kinnegad in another hard-to-call semi-final. Loosely speaking, the Mullingar blues’ upward trajectory has followed a similar path to Dublin at inter-county level with a dominance of the ‘tennies’ preceding another hard-earned title in the weird year that was 2020. Taking the analogy further, the Dubs stuttered their way to another Delaney Cup win this year, but a lot of the ‘unbeatable’ aura had disappeared and Mayo dethroned the champions in the semi-final.
Similarly, the St Loman’s juggernaut has been stuttering along through the round robin stages and the subsequent quarter-final scare at the hands of Caulry. Declan Kelly, also the manager of the aforementioned Offaly U20s, will be very aware of the challenge posed by the men in red and white. Again, a healthy underage record has helped to propel Liam McNeill’s charges into genuine senior contenders. Their ‘famine’ is much longer than the other three semi-finalists, with just one Flanagan Cup garnered in their current guise, back in 1996.
Of course, Kinnegad (five times with the last coming in 1946) and Coralstown (once in 1937) won the senior football championship, in addition to St Finian’s in 1967. Indeed, on the many occasions that a very welcome cup of tea is provided in the kitchen at Coralstown/Kinnegad’s grounds, yours truly invariably tells the story about the rain-soaked men from 54 years ago whose picture graces the wall. This 11-year-old was utterly saturated that day, and the best version of events that I can pick up is that the match against St Mary’s (without the Rochfortbridge name added at the time) was only played in torrential conditions as the Artane Boys Band had been pre-booked. This instrument-less boy will never forget that drenching!
Hail, rain, or snow, next Sunday’s (kind of) double-header seems sure to provide a couple of hard-fought contests. If St Loman’s, Mullingar and The Downs hit top form, they should march on to a first final meeting since 1968 (when Mullingar was not part of the current champions’ name). However, the two games are really 50/50 clashes.
Roll on Sunday.